UK Intermarriage Rate is 26%; Lower than Feared

According to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, the current intermarriage rate among self-identifying Jews in Britain stands at 26% – the highest level for a generation in Britain.

The report is the first dedicated study of the topic that has ever been published about Jews in Britain.

The strength of the data on which the analysis is based (the 2011 Census and JPR’s 2013 National Jewish Community Survey) make it the most definitive and up-to-date assessment of Jewish intermarriage in Britain.

Key findings from the report include:

22% of married Jews are intermarried, although the intermarriage rate is estimated to be about 26% for those Jews who have married since 2010;

The intermarriage rate is at its highest level to date and reflects an upward trend, but it has risen by only 2% since the 1990s;

Levels of intermarriage in the British Jewish community are comparable with the Australian Jewish community;

96% of children of in-married Jewish couples are raised as Jews, whereas this is the case for only 31% of the children of intermarried Jews;

The partners and dependent children of Jews who are not Jewish, or who otherwise did not report Jewish in the 2011 Census, number 53,000 people, equivalent to 20% of the size of the Jewish population;

Jews are marrying later than they have been in a generation – seven years later than in the 1970s;

Cohabitation rates among Jews climbed by 17% between 2001 and 2011, and one in three Jews in their late twenties now cohabits.

The complete report, “Jews in couples: Marriage, intermarriage, cohabitation and divorce in Britain” is available here.

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